The Boy Life of Napoleon | Page 6

he knew, instead, that if it were not for the help of their uncle,

the Canon Lucien, they would often go hungry in the big house on the
little park.
But there was one consolation. If he was badly off, so, too, were many
other boys and girls in that Mediterranean island. For when Napoleon
Bonaparte was a boy, there was much trouble in Corsica. That rocky,
sea-washed, forest-crowned island of mountains and valleys, queer
customs and brave people, had been in rebellion, against its
masters--first, the republic of Genoa, and then against France.
[Illustration: House In Which Napoleon Was Born]
[Illustration: The Mother of Napoleon]
[Illustration: The Father of Napoleon]
[Illustration: Room In Which Napoleon Was Born]
Napoleon's father, Charles Bonaparte, had been a Corsican politician
and patriot, a follower of the great Corsican leader, Paoli, who had
spent many years of a glorious life in trying to lead his
fellow-Corsicans to liberty and self-government. But the attempt had
been a failure; and three months before the baby Napoleon was born,
Charles Bonaparte had, with other Corsican leaders, given up the
struggle. He submitted to the French power, took the oath of allegiance,
and became a French citizen. And thus it came to pass that little
Napoleon Bonaparte, though an Italian by blood and family, was really
by birth a French citizen.
Still, all that did not help him much, if, indeed, he thought anything
about it as he stood in his grotto looking out to sea. He was thinking of
other things,--of how he would like to be great and strong and rich, so
that he could be a leader of other boys, rather than be teased by them;
for little Napoleon Bonaparte did not take kindly to being teased, but
would get very angry at his tormentors, and would bite and scratch and
fight like any little savage. He had, as a child, what is known as an
ungovernable temper, although he was able to keep it under control
until the moment came when he could both say and do to his own

satisfaction. He loved his father and mother; he loved his brothers and
sisters; he loved his uncle, the Canon Lucien; he loved, more than all
his other playmates and companions, his boy-uncle, fat,
twelve-year-old Joey Fesch, who had taught him his letters, and been
his admirer and follower from babyhood.
But though he loved them all, he loved his own way best; and he was
bound to have it, however much his father might talk, his mother chide,
or his uncle the canon correct him. So, as he stood in the grotto,
remembering that on that day he was seven years old, he determined to
let all his family see that he knew what he wished to become and do.
He would show them, he declared, that he was a little boy, a baby, no
longer; they should know that he was a boy who would be a man long
before other boys grew up, and would then show his family that they
had never really understood him.
At last he turned away and walked slowly toward home. The Bonaparte
house was, as I have told you, a big, bare, four-story, yellow-gray
house. It stood on a little narrow street, now called, after Napoleon's
mother, Letitia Place, in the town of Ajaccio. The street was not over
eight or ten feet wide; but opposite to the house was a little park that
allowed the Bonapartes to get both light and air--something that would
otherwise be hard to obtain in a street only ten feet wide.
Tired and thirsty from his walk through the sunshine of the hot August
afternoon, the boy started for the dining-room for a drink of water. As
he opened the door in his quick, impetuous way, he heard a noise as of
some one startled and fleeing. The swinging sash of the long French
window opposite him shut with a bang, and Napoleon had a glimpse of
a bit of white skirt, caught for an instant on the window-fastening.
"Ah, ha! it was not a bird, then, that fluttering," he said. "It was a girl.
One of my sisters. Now, which one, I wonder? and why did she run? I
do not care to catch her. It is no sport playing with girls."
So little curiosity did he have in the matter, that he did not follow on
the track of the fugitive, nor even go to the window to look out; but,
walking up to the sideboard, he opened it to take the water-pitcher and

get a drink.
As he did so, he started. There stood the basket of fruit which Saveria
had filled so carefully with fruit for his uncle the canon. But now the
basket was only half filled. Who